AI Nanomachines Could Soon Allow Us To Control Things With Our Minds

As the Lords Committee is also an ethically-focused panel, McNamara emphasized that this technological leap won’t be available to everyone.

“Today, being poor means being unable to afford the latest smartphone,” he surmised. “Tomorrow this could mean the difference between one group of people potentially having an extraordinary uplift in physical ability, cognitive ability, health, lifespan and another much wider group that do not.”

So is society ready for AI to become so widespread? That’s what the Data Society Research Institute – a New York-based tech-heavy think tank – openly wondered when it also submitted its evidence to the Committee.

“The implications of AI will be far-reaching, and are impossible to comprehensively predict,” the authors explain in a written statement, adding that proper science communication is key here, or else people will simply fear AI rather than embrace it.

“We believe that the most productive ways for the general public to be prepared for widespread use of AI will be to understand the limitations – alongside the possibilities – of AI technologies.”

Who exactly commands the AIs in the future is something that experts are telling us to keep watch over, and understandably so. ZenZen/Shutterstock

In an ominous addendum, the institute goes on to warn that we should be wary of AI being controlled by the heads of large organizations. “If AI technologies are allowed to bypass existing norms and regulations, this is likely to benefit corporations at the expense of individual workers.”